2018 iPhone Sales

I have no idea whether this time it’s different and the reported production cuts actually do mean that sales are lower than Apple expected. But Apple itself does seem to be reacting differently than in past years.

Sean Keane:

Apple told its main phone assemblers, Foxconn and Pegatron, to stop plans for additional iPhone XR production lines, a report said Monday.

The order to the two Taiwanese companies suggests that demand for cheapest of the 2018 iPhones hasn’t lived up to Apple’s expectations, according to Nikkei, which cited anonymous sources.

Joe Rossignol:

In recent weeks, Apple slashed production orders for its latest iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR models due to “lower-than-expected demand,” among other reasons, according to unnamed sources cited by The Wall Street Journal.

Shara Tibken:

Apple’s iPhone XR has been outselling the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max every day since the cheaper, colorful phone hit the market last month.

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, told CNET in an interview Wednesday that the device has “been our most popular iPhone each and every day since the day it became available.”

Mark Gurman:

Apple Inc. is experimenting with iPhone marketing strategies it rarely uses -- such as discount promotions via generous device buyback terms -- to help goose sales of its flagship product.

Company executives moved some marketing staff from other projects to work on bolstering sales of the latest handsets in October, about a month after the iPhone XS went on sale and in the days around the launch of the iPhone XR, according to a person familiar with the situation. This person described it as a “fire drill,” and a possible admission that the devices may have been selling below some expectations.

Michael Steeber:

Starting this week throughout U.S. stores, Apple co-opted its Genius Bar Displays in classic locations, Apple TV demos, and Today at Apple Forum Displays to promote iPhone XS and XR deals. Rolling out Wednesday, animated video demo loops play on the displays, followed by text similar to Apple’s online copy: “Limited Time. iPhone XR from $449. Trade in your current iPhone and upgrade to a new one.” While Apple has used similar wording for in-store promotion of its Back to School offer, the advertising has traditionally been limited to desktop wallpapers on display Macs.

Until recently, Genius Bar Displays were used to showcase product tips and Apple Support videos. Last month, Apple began highlighting upcoming Today at Apple sessions on the displays. The change brought consistency to Apple’s message at every location. In updated stores, the Video Wall serves a similar role and runs playlists of curated artwork when not in use. Forum Displays, when idle between sessions, also highlight each store’s Today at Apple schedule. Marketing of limited-time offers is outside the scope of their original intended use.

Bob Burrough:

Visual comparison of iPhone sales 2015-2018.

Previously: Apple’s Q4 2018 Results, My Today at Apple Experience.

Update (2018-12-11): Tim Hardwick:

Two of Apple’s largest suppliers have reported healthy jumps in monthly revenue, suggesting fears of weak iPhone demand may be overblown (via Bloomberg).

Asian firms TSMC and Foxconn (Hon Hai) both posted a 5.6 percent rise in November sales, reversing a recent trend of Apple suppliers reducing production or revenue outlooks to reflect lowering demand for Apple’s smartphones.

Update (2018-12-12): Tim Hardwick:

Apple this morning began offering promo codes to Apple Music subscribers that allow them to buy a HomePod at a discounted price for a limited time, in a holiday-themed promotion.

Mike Murphy:

This is probably the last one of these charts I’ll ever get to make

Apple is going to stop breaking out shipment data, and it seems pretty obvious why[…]

Ryan Jones:

App Store Editorial team - told to sell hardware too.

Update (2019-01-01): Adam Clark Estes:

Apple put its brand new iPhone on sale just a few weeks after release. Well, it wasn’t an outright sale. Faced with poor sales, the company boosted trade-in values of old iPhones so that you could get an iPhone XR for up to $300 off. These slumping sales numbers are part of a trend, too. People just aren’t buying as many iPhones as they used to, so Apple has been scrambling to figure out its future.

Joe Rossignol:

iPhone XR demand has been lower than expected, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has slashed his overall iPhone shipment forecast by 20 percent for the first quarter of 2019. He now expects Apple to move 38-42 million iPhones in the quarter, down from his original estimate of 47-52 million.

Juli Clover:

The iPhone XR sold similarly to the iPhone X during its first month of availability in November 2017, but it did not match sales of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which were at 39 percent in November even after two months of availability.

Although this could be because the XS and/or XS Max is selling relatively better.

Update (2019-01-02): Horace Dediu:

“A study of new activations suggests that the iPhone XR, despite rumors, had a great Christmas” (Localytics - 3 billion data points daily)

This seems like an odd chart because it only looks at the percentage bump compared with several weeks before Christmas. It says nothing about whether the actual number of sales is high or low.

Apple:

Based on these estimates, our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance.

[…]

While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.

[…]

Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year.

[…]

While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.

Jason Snell:

Yikes! Back in November Apple felt that the holiday season would be its best quarter ever. In the cold light of 2019, it turns out that it’s going to be down $4B year over year, and most of the reason is iPhone sales.

John Gruber:

Not sure Cook should have listed this as a reason for slower than expected iPhone sales. Sure makes it sound like the old way of handling battery degradation was intended to drive people to buy new phones.

scott:

It wasn’t because customers were told for the first time that a new battery would speed up their old phone. It was only because Apple discounted the service by $50.

Previously: Apple Confirms That It Throttles iPhones With Degraded Batteries.

Troy Gaul:

Don’t forget that this is also the year that the new iOS release made old devices faster rather than slower…

Ryan Jones:

I give Cook credit for being mostly straight shooter in the letter. But…

- “period of adversity” 😱

- Fix this with iPhone financing and easier data-transfers. 🤣

- rambling long letter with minuscule excuses 🤦‍♂️

Will Cosgrove:

The negative appearance and flimsy excuses must have out-weighted the thought of having to say ‘we priced the iPhone too high and the market is saturated.’

Damien Petrilli:

The battery program replacement is blamed for lower sales.

But instead, it made Apple keeping a lot of users.

I can tell you that with their new pricing, everybody around me is considering a switch to Android now and just didn’t because their battery was replaced.

Ryan Jones:

The hard part is the answers are very counterintuitive. Don’t squeeze more money, re-assign good people that have tried their best, charge less (App Store), give away more (iCloud), etc

Update (2019-01-04): Rene Ritchie:

CNBC interview with @tim_cook is must see TV

Bob Burrough:

Apple’s problem is they’ve been making insane money for the last decade, but they don’t use that wealth to reinforce their value proposition. For example, why shouldn’t AppleCare be included in the cost of the phone? It absolutely should be.

Ryan Jones:

OK, criticism is cheap, actual suggestions matter:

- Triple-down on customer centric
- Extreme action to increase Cloud-related reliability
- Product > 90-day growth
- Stop discount sales
- Organize the damn lineups
- Consolidate ports/dongles, fast
- Stop rent-seeking
- 50GB iCloud
- ZERO announcements until it’s ready TIM!
- 15% App Store cut
- Buy DuckDuckGo
- Buy Dropbox? (Buying your way out never works fwiw)
- Listen to your enthusiasts (NOT customers)
- Cut TouchBar
- Get AirPods in stock!
- Crush iOS 13

Previously: AirPods Shipping Delay.

Meek Geek:

Let’s talk about skimping on the product:

- 5GB iCloud storage to backup a 64/256/512GB phone
- no fast charger included
- headphone dongle pack-in removed
- mandatory performance throttling after a year, or pay to change the battery
- exorbitant back glass replacement charges

Steve Troughton-Smith:

After today’s news, do you think prospective iPhone X* users will buy now, or wait until Apple drops the prices next release? 🧐 Does anybody think the pricing will remain the same?

Marco Arment:

China, etc. are valid reasons, but we can’t ignore that, across the entire product line, there’s been a very common theme for the last few years of paying more and getting less.

When you keep tightening the screws on your customers, you’ll eventually find their breaking point.

Scott A. Bell:

If only someone had warned them...

“If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.” -- Steve Jobs

Dan Moren:

Apple’s choice to discontinue revealing unit sales was in part because it knew a slowdown in units was coming, but they didn’t expect it a) this soon, b) this significantly, or c) both.

Ryan Jones:

Not “needing" the latest iPhone is the root here.

And underneath that is the REAL terrifying thing I’ve been preaching…

Software is the new completive basis and they’re slipping.

Period.

Josh Centers:

That’d explain why Apple waged wars on refurbishers in 2018.

Bob Burrough:

If Apple can drive iPhone sales down by replacing batteries, they aren’t replacing enough batteries yet.

Josh Centers:

If a $29 battery slows down iPhone sales, then either people were only buying new iPhones because their old ones were getting slower or Apple isn’t producing interesting iPhones.

Ryan Jones:

Ahhh I know what they’re doing with the fishy af battery thing.

It’s their way of showing they take ownership of the problems and acknowledging it’s not all external, while admitting nothing.

Ahha.

The Macalope:

I haven’t bought a new iPhone since the SE first arrived. And it has nothing to do with them being too expensive or lacking “innovation”.

Zac Cichy:

Apple is an international company. When one domino falls, others are hit. It’s a constant balancing act. Right now people are using this news to justify any and all takes, and realistically: they can’t all be true. Take some time and look critically at the information.

MacJournals.com:

We read it as saying the $30 price for battery replacements was at a loss.

Tae Kim:

Apple telling Cnet on Nov. 28 that the iPhone XR was the best selling model since launch did not do investors any favors. I called out how bizarre the comparison was then

John Gordon:

Excellent news — Apple missed numbers! So they will either give us more value ... or they will squeeze us dry ...

John Gruber:

It’s easy to say “OK, it’s just China”, except that China is Apple’s only hope for iPhone sales growth. The truth seems obvious: Apple reached peak iPhone unit sales a few years ago, and now that they’ve peaked, when something goes wrong in a major market like China, it’s going to result in an overall decline in sales.

[…]

iPhone sales have effectively peaked for two reasons. First, Apple ran out of new markets to conquer years ago. The iPhone is effectively available worldwide. The astounding go-go growth of the iPhone in the early years was largely about their steady expansion into new countries around the world.

Mike Rundle:

Until a fundamentally new iPhone feature is invented, I think the sales party is over. The iPhone X is good enough and the XS is certainly good enough. Current iPhones are blazing fast with unbelievable cameras. That will still be true in September when the new iPhone comes out.

Colin Cornaby:

Reminder on Apple cutting gross profits by $5-9 Billion: Their net profit last quarter was $14.13 billion. One year ago it was $20 billion.

If spending remained comparable that’s a heck of a hole in the net profits. Still a net profit, still a lot of money in the bank though.

John Gruber:

I really don’t think the prices are too high — I think the high XS/Max prices are keeping revenue where it is. I do think market is saturated though.

This response needed to more of a story, a “Here’s where the iPhone stands” narrative. Not this blah blah blah blah response.

Thomas:

I know several Apple users of 20+ years who have switched to Windows and Android over prices in 2018. They didn’t want to but Apple pushed them too hard and 2018 finally was the tipping point.

Horace Dediu:

The Apple Watch is now a decidedly bigger business than the iPod ever was.

Horace Dediu:

This may come as a shock but Wearables will soon join Services in overtaking the Mac (and the iPad) in revenues.

Horace Dediu:

Looks like Greater China Apple revenues went from +16% y/y growth in Q3 to -40% in Q4.

John Gruber:

That’s it — that’s the entirety of this [2002 earnings] warning. Two paragraphs, under 200 words. Tim Cook’s “letter to investors” today was about 1,400 words.

[…]

Even if Jobs were still around I don’t think Apple could get away with a message so short with today’s news. But Cook’s letter was just too long. There was no story to it, no narrative.

[…]

I think Cook’s genuine and inherent humility holds Apple back on days like today. Apple needed less “I’m sorry, let me explain” and more “Fuck you, this is bullshit, let me explain”. What people took away from Cook’s letter and TV appearance today is that the iPhone laid a turd last quarter. Properly delivered, the takeaway should have been that China is crazy but the iPhone is still kicking the shit out of the entire rest of the handset industry and is only pulling further ahead.

Ryan Jones:

But I do worry the reason it wasn’t written that simple is that it’s not that simple; namely, it’s not all China.

Mark W. Yusko:

This is #ColdWarTwo propaganda BS... $AAPL isn’t even in top 10 in smart phones in #China... problem is they priced themselves out of middle market globally and top 1% all have phones that are “good enough”...

Mark Gurman (tweet):

In a memo obtained by Bloomberg News, Cook expressed his disappointment after Apple cut its revenue outlook for the first time in almost two decades.

[…]

Cook also invited employees to a rare all-hands meeting Thursday, where he intends to share more details about the quarter and take questions.

Ben Bajarin:

Another interesting dynamics of the iPhone upgrade cycle is the higher prices have moved typical carrier leasing to three years instead of two. Xr was included in this as many family members who upgraded to Xr were moved to three year leases.

3-4 year upgrades becoming the norm

Michael Love:

Also, a saturated smartphone market with slowing upgrade cycles isn’t really a bad thing at all for developers; same number of customers but less time spent dealing with the annual drumbeat of everything getting radically redesigned.

Shameer Mulji:

This is an important many don’t seem to understand. iPhone users aren’t jumping ship to Android, they’re just holding onto their iPhones for a longer time

M.G. Siegler:

The problem is that as good as the Services business is becoming for Apple, it’s unlikely to replace the iPhone as the key cog of Apple’s overall business anytime soon. And this means Apple is unlikely to grow as a whole anytime soon. Sure, there may be some quarters of growth here and there, but as this current situation makes clear, the era of unabated growth is over.

The iPhone has simply been too good of a business. And it’s hard to see what tops it. Certainly in the near term. If Services is to carry Apple in the future, it will likely be only after years of relatively stagnant iPhone revenue growth mixed with a rising overall market. In other words, time and the broader world will have to catch up. And then Apple can have their “Microsoft Moment” — a services-based resurrection of growth.

Shira Ovide:

This is a trend years in the making. But at each and every opportunity, Cook has dismissed questions about whether changes in upgrade behavior will hurt Apple’s revenue.

In an August conference call with stock analysts, one of them asked Cook whether the company could continue to sell more iPhones in a few years in light of the smartphone market’s stagnation. Cook said he thought Apple could sell more phones to people who already owned iPhones, to those who had competing devices and to people who had never owned a smartphone. It was an answer straight out of 2015, when everything Cook said was true. It’s not true anymore, and Cook should have known that.

Krzysztof Kurdyła:

I doesn’t change reality that Cook is a new John Sculley, who sacrifices market share and future of the company for extremely high today’s profits. When the real global crisis comes, Apple prices will hit the company not only in Asia.. And it does not look like Cook has a plan B

Wojtek Pietrusiewicz:

I’m curious how much more he could have grown market share by not only expanding into new markets but by letting go of some of those margins.

Benjamin Mayo:

You know, it would be easier for customers to transfer data to a new iPhone if Apple gave them more than 5 GB of iCloud storage for backups.

If you order a new phone on Apple.com , they should instantly grant your Apple ID enough iCloud space to fully backup your current phone so you can move seamlessly to the new model.

After your phone is setup, the storage boost can go away.

I mean, I wish Apple would simply raise the free tier for everyone … but that is much more of a leap than a temporary top-up to help drive iPhone upgrades.

Previously: The Missing iCloud Storage Bump.

Steven Sinofsky:

OMG, the end of good times. No more left to do. Where’s the innovation. Shocking news from Apple on revenue, but needs some context.

Maturing or mature markets are not dead markets. The world did not change overnight even with this announcement.

This isn’t this is fine.

[…]

There are many examples of mature product lines with significant growth selling into a market where the only customers left are upgrades.

Some of these are dull or make little money, some don’t. Most don’t have the moat Apple does.

Innovtors dilemma tends to make people think that businesses evaporate. This is the biggest learning over the past 20 years—established businesses seem to make more money at the “tail end” than at the rise up.

[…]

Third, just as with PCs v browsers / Linux (or servers running in cloud today) there’s a massive opportunity to be had by taking share from the free competitor.

Yes not in Apple DNA, etc—iterally how Apple lost against PCs with Mac. So maybe “this time is different”. Or not.

When I look at this it is shocking—you would have thought this had some level of predictability. One can only conclude one of two things. Either they are surprised. Or things changed more rapidly than many thought.

Seth Weintraub:

When I think about Apple iPhone prices right now, I can’t get this out of my head.

What ruined Apple wasn’t growth … They got very greedy … Instead of following the original trajectory of the original vision, which was to make the thing an appliance and get this out there to as many people as possible, they went for profits. They made outlandish profits for about four years… What that cost them was their future. What they should have been doing is making rational profits and going for market share. (Steve Jobs, 1995)

Steven Sinofsky:

Much analysis: Apple has long known it is missing the boat on providing low priced phones—strategic mistake to cede “low end” to Android. Or raised prices too much/soon. Then it must be an easy answer to just lower prices or make low priced phones. Ack! Harder than it looks.

[…]

So when people say Apple needs a cheaper phone there are many questions to answer beyond the get over yourself luxury brand issue.

What is distribution constraint? What partner absorbs some cost to leave margin? What is the branding?

Easy question — would a cheap phone be sold and supported in Apple stores side by side? How would the rest of the customers feel about more crowds and tougher appointments competing with people who paid half as much? Sell one phone against another—how?

Ryan Jones:

1) This is why Tim’s rambling-financial-engineering-solution letter is terrifying. Versus Steve’s we’re-making-awesomer-shit brief.

2) This is why Apple’s software/services is terrifying. Most of the innovation left lies there.

Uluroo:

To clarify, I agree the XS is worth at least $899 if they price it realistically. But I want them to do what they did with the XR, one step further: a “worse” phone for a better price. $649, smaller screen than XR; seems like a no-brainer upgrade for 6S people.

Update (2019-01-09): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast, The Flock, and Hacker News 2.

Benjamin Mayo:

I think if you read this report and come away with the idea that Apple’s strategy of jacking up iPhone prices to the $1000 level has backfired, you are not interpreting what Cook wrote accurately.

[…]

Nowhere does it allude to Apple pricing its products out of reach of consumers. In fact, it says “categories outside of iPhone combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year”. Apple raised prices on basically every product last year, and it seems to be mostly working. They are going to hit all-time revenue records in many regions, including the United States.

Christina Warren:

It feels safe to say, without breakout sales data (RIP), that the XR hasn’t met expectations. I can’t speak specifically for China, but in the US this indicates a larger issue I’ve been commenting on for two years: the growing price to be in the Apple ecosystem.

[…]

I said in another reply that I think for many users 6S was “peak iPhone” - camera was good enough (4K video, great photos), processor was fast enough, and the OS runs great. So if you got a 6S in 2015 or 2016, you might have paid $650 or so, depending on capacity.

[…]

In 2018 or 2019, to get the XR, your starting price is now $750. Now, that doesn’t feel massive, but consider that in 2015 you probably also had some option to have a subsidy. Whereas in 2018/2019, you pay upfront or on a payment/upgrade plan.

But also, the XR is seen as the “cheap” iPhone. It’s less than the XS or XS Max. It doesn’t matter how good the reviews are. Like the 5C, it is viewed as the shitty iPhone.

Steven Sinofsky:

What happens when a computer doesn’t actually get slow, wear out, get compromised, isn’t needed for new apps, and so on?

More uncharted territory for Apple—iPhone is first computer that doesn’t decay over time, works until screen breaks/battery fails.

Harry McCracken:

Interesting Apple sales pitch from my inbox, suggesting I move from an iPhone X to an XR for a lower monthly cost.

Ben Thompson:

Secondly, thanks in part to the lack of information, this miss is catnip for confirmation bias: everyone has their pet theory about what Apple is doing wrong or how they will ultimately fail, and it has been striking the degree to which this revenue warning has been breezily adapted to show that said critics were right all along (never mind that many of those critics trotted out the exact same explanations in 2013 and 2016).

Third, well, I happen to think that I am right as well: I believe that Apple’s management made three critical errors in their forecast for this last quarter that were predictable precisely because they had made the same errors before — errors that I wrote about at the time.

Yoko Kubota (Hacker News):

When Apple Inc. launched the iPhone XR in October, Tim Cook singled out the device to his more than a million followers on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. “Wonderful to see so many people in China enjoying the new iPhone XR,” he said.

The message underscored Apple’s hope that the device, the cheapest of its three iPhone releases, would be a strong seller in the world’s largest smartphone market.

Juli Clover:

When asked about reports that the iPhone XR was a flop, Cook says he calls "bologna on that." The iPhone XR has, in fact, been the most popular iPhone "every single day" since it started shipping out to customers.

Cook did, however, demure when asked about iPhone XR sales relative to other sales, saying only that he’d like to sell more, and that Apple is "working on that."

Benjamin Mayo:

The iPhone XR has firmly taken over the iPhone XS in usage, according to data from Mixpanel. Although Apple seems to be struggling to meet targets on sales across the iPhone line, the relative sales of the XR now means it has overtaken the 5.8-inch iPhone XS, which had a one month sales lead.

However, the iPhone XS Max continues to hold a sizeable lead despite being the most expensive option.

Update (2019-01-11): See also: Exponent.

Update (2019-01-15): Jean-Louis Gassée:

A more serious issue is Apple’s blind spot regarding China. I distinctly recall Cook telling analysts during a quarterly earnings call that, having studied the country for 30 years, he knew China. This is true and relevant. Cook’s ascension to the COO and, later, to the CEO job is due to his prowess building and managing Apple’s nonpareil Supply Chain Management (SCM) system. Imagine the thousands of parts inside an iPhone, and then picture building ten iPhones per second, 24 hours a day at the peak of the Holidays season, and shipping them to 130 countries… No question, one has to know China, the people, the culture, companies large and some small to make the SCM magic happen year after year, with only the rarest of hiccups.

With all of these strengths, how could Apple, which is more embedded than most Western companies, not see a Chinese economy slowdown that started well before the 2018 Holiday quarter? More specifically, what did Apple know and not know when they issued a guardedly optimistic Q1 revenue guidance in the $89B to $93B range on November 1st? What did they learn in the following 60 days, how much, how fast?

The Talk Show:

Special guest Ben Thompson returns to the show. Topics include Apple’s horrible no good very bad earnings warning, the Chinese market, Apple’s push toward services for revenue growth, antitrust issues regarding the App Store, and more.

John Gruber (MacRumors):

During Apple’s all-hands meeting January 3, Tim Cook said Apple replaced 11 million batteries under the $29 replacement program, and they’d have only anticipated about 1-2 million battery replacements normally.

[…]

But Gassée’s second point still stands: the battery replacement program ran all year long, so even if it was more popular than Apple originally expected, why wasn’t it accounted for in guidance issued on November 1 — 10 months after the program started?

Update (2019-01-23): Geoffrey Fowler and Andrew Van Dam:

Most technology products are commodities that go down in price over time. Apple has worked very hard not to become a commodity.

John Gruber:

You can certainly argue that Apple is making a strategic branding mistake by making more expensive products. But it simply wasn’t an option to sell the iPhone X/XS as it exists for iPhone 7 prices.

Update (2019-01-24): Alex Allegro:

New data from CIRP, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, shows that iPhone XR was the best selling iPhone model in the United States over the past fiscal quarter, accounting for nearly 40% of total sales. Interestingly, the iPhone XS and XS Max combined accounted for just over 25%.

Unsurprisingly, the iPhone XS was the most unpopular new iPhone, being outsold by its Max counterpart by a “more than two-to-one ratio”.

Update (2019-01-28): Ben Bajarin:

Apple's December quarter iPhone sales are looking to be off about ~16% down from 77m to about 65/66 million.

My talks with investors have moved from the bad quarter to how bad the year may be for iPhone sales.

Services/Wearables still where growth hope comes from.

Update (2019-01-31): suyash:

I’m surprised nobody in the US Apple press has picked up on the fact that FaceID doesn’t work with facemasks. The experience is worse than any phone with a fingerprint sensor for many users in Asia, probably contributing to lower than expected sales for all X-series iPhones.

Previously: Face ID.

Update (2019-07-05): Tim Hardwick:

Apple reimbursed Samsung 800 billion won ($683 million) to cover the cost of OLED panels after Apple missed a sales target both companies had agreed upon.

Apple originally said it would buy a certain number of the display panels from the South Korean company, but disappointing iPhone sales meant it was unable to live up to the agreement. The payment was made in the second quarter of this year.

Apple Apple Retail Stores Battery Life Business China Face ID Greg Joswiak HomePod iPhone iPhone XR iPhone XS iPhone XS Max Tim Cook

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